Her daughter Rylee’s belly laughs. Her quick hugs. Her easy smile and the way she loves to play peekaboo.

That’s why Anes says she is unlikely to get the prenatal blood test if she has another child. The Byron Township mom says she has learned everything she needs to know about Down syndrome from 3-year-old Rylee.

But Anes and other parents of children with Down syndrome worry about the impact of the test on the general public. They fear more people will choose to terminate pregnancies without fully knowing the potential of kids like Rylee and the ways they enrich a family’s life.

"If anyone met Rylee, they would see how awesome she is," Anes said. She and her husband, Curt, also have a 4 1/2-year-old son, Brenden, and might have more children "eventually," she said.

The Center for Molecular Medicine, a Grand Rapids-based subsidiary of Sequenom Inc., released the test last week in 20 U.S. cities, including Detroit. It expects to make it available nationwide in 2012.

The test detects trisomy 21, a condition in which a person has three copies of the 21st chromosome instead of two. It is the most common cause of Down syndrome. A study published in the journal Genetics in Medicine found the test detected 98.6 percent of Down syndrome cases and was accurate as early as 10 weeks gestation. The false positive rate — in which the test inaccurately predicted a child would have Down syndrome — was 0.2 percent.

If the blood test indicates a child has Down syndrome, parents are advised to confirm the results with amniocentesis, a test that involves inserting a needle into the uterus to collect amniotic fluid. It carries a 1-in-200 risk of miscarriage.

Because the new test is more accurate than current screening tests — which have false-positive rates of about 5 percent — it is expected to reduce the need for amniocentesis.

According to the National Down Syndrome Society, one in every 691 babies is born with Down syndrome, which can cause mental and physical abnormalities. The risk of having a child with the condition rises with the age of the mother. About 750,000 pregnancies a year are considered high-risk, Sequenom says.

The test costs $1,900, but the company said patients with insurance would not pay more than $235 out of pocket. It plans to work with insurance companies in covering the rest.

The new blood test is “a dramatically more accurate test than we currently have available,” said Dr. Steve Lown, senior partner of Michigan Obstetrics and Gynecology. “I think it’s quite possible more women will want this testing done over any routine testing we have now.”

He doesn’t think it will lead to a rise in the rate of abortions locally.

“With appropriate counseling, I don’t think that’s going to be a significant issue, especially in West Michigan,” he said.

In fact, Lown predicted many women will decline the test. In his office, only about half of the women with higher-risk pregnancies chose to undergo the current test that screens for Down syndrome and other chromosomal abnormalities. And those who opt for the screening say they just want to be prepared if they have a child with special needs.

That is the approach Marie Rossi, an East Grand Rapids mother of nine, took when she was pregnant with her youngest child. Angela, who does not have Down syndrome, was born Sept. 29.

Rossi underwent the screening test during her pregnancy because, at 45, her risk of having a child with Down syndrome was 1 in 25.

If her child had the condition, she wanted to start networking with other parents, consulting specialists and finding out all she could before the baby’s birth. If Sequenom’s new blood test were available, she said she likely would have been open to it because it provides information but does not carry the risks of amniocentesis.

Learning the diagnosis before birth would provide “a little bit more time to get your mind around it and start researching it,” Rossi said. “What’s this little one going to need, and how can I best serve this little one’s needs?”

Members of the Down Syndrome Association of West Michigan are eager to provide that information, but they worry they won’t get that chance in many cases. At the time of diagnosis, parents often are given a grim and inaccurate picture of what to expect, said Melissa Werkman, the association’s executive director.

Katy Batdorff | The Grand Rapids PressRylee smiles up at her dad, Curt Anes, as they play with the Halloween blanket.

“People go home, and they are just devastated,” she said. “They are not given connections to resources like ours. They don’t get to see what happens to this child down the road and how they can live very viable and happy lives.”

In such cases, she fears parents will make a quick decision to terminate the pregnancy. Studies in the late 1990s found that when Down syndrome was diagnosed prenatally, the parents chose abortion 80 to 90 percent of the time. However, Werkman said the studies were based on fewer than half the states in the U.S., so advocates now question whether those findings apply nationwide.

The West Michigan group and the National Down Syndrome Society are focusing their efforts on educating physicians, so they can give parents accurate, up-to-date information “with hopeful language and positivity.”

Members of the West Michigan group also serve as mentors to parents of children with Down syndrome.

“We just want people to have the most support available to make the best decision,” said Gayle Knibbe, president of the West Michigan association. She and her husband, who live in East Grand Rapids, had four sons before adopting two girls with Down syndrome.

“Basically, they’re the secret path to joy for us,” Knibbe said of her daughters, Daniella, 9, and Grace, 8. “We have seen nothing but beauty come into our family with them. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but parenting is. There’s no guarantees for any of our kids.”

The release of Sequenom’s blood test comes two years after the company was involved in a scandal over a different test for Down syndrome. The company reported in 2009 that employees mishandled data verifying the effectiveness of the earlier, RNA-based test. Five executives were fired and the company settled a class-action suit with shareholders for $14 million.

For the new, DNA-based test, Sequenom had the results independently verified by a clinical trial sponsored by Women’s and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island.